How Making “Designer Babies” Has Suddenly Become a Hot Topic in Reproductive Medicine and Beyond
In our August 1, 2025 Reproductive Times posting, we featured a rare CHR Opinion arguing that commercially motivated marketing forces appeared on the march. They, in increasingly obvious ways, attempted to popularize the concept of polygenic risk scoring of embryos in association with IVF (PGT-M). PGT-M is, of course, another highly controversial genetic test of embryos (in addition to preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, PGT-A) with very obvious and substantial ethical, clinical, as well as societal consequences.
We, in the August 1 posting, especially addressed a shortly-before-published article in The Washington Post (WP) on the subject, which extensively featured a California company called Orchid and its founder, Noor Siddiqui, a former Thiel Fellow. For context, Thiel Fellows are talented individuals willing to forgo studies at mostly Ivy League schools in return for $100,000 in start-up funds from the Thiel Foundation, recently doubled to $200,000.
And, lo and behold, as almost only The Free Press can, Johanna Berkman on Monday, August 11, 2025, published another remarkable story under the title, “The Race to Make Designer Babies,” involving another 29-year-old Thiel Fellow by the name Cathy Tie and—yes—“Chinese Frankenstein,” He Jiankui, PhD, of 2018 fame (or should we say instead infamy?), for applying in vivo gene-editing to two embryos in attempts to eliminate HIV risk for these embryos, both now allegedly healthy twins. But what makes their story—and therefore this Free Press article—so gripping is not only that these two individuals are openly planning in vivo human embryo editing, but that they initially planned on doing this together in Austin, Texas, in a new commercial venture.
Such a venture is, of course, the logical next step from Siddiqui’s company, which, according to the WP article, allegedly offers polygenic embryo screening through whole genome screening from as few as 5–6 trophectoderm cells (by many experts in genomic screening, not considered a very credible technology).
We, therefore, are reprinting here today a mildly updated version of our original August 1 article as an introduction to our commentary on Berkman’s really interesting contemporary article in The Free Press. We can virtually guarantee that you will enjoy the read! And just on a side note, The Free Press announced one of its public Freedom Debates for September 10, 2025, on the subject, “Is Designing Babies Unethical—Or a Moral Imperative?” (see the announcement below).
Making Polygenic Risk Scoring Marketable and Ethically Acceptable - According to the Washington Post -Silicon Valley Is Out to Produce “Super-Babies”
Originally published in The Reproductive Times on August 1, 2025. Revised on August 13, 2025.
Even though ASRM/SART finally declared the procedure useless,1 the genetic testing industry is apparently not satisfied with utilizing by now preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) in over half of all U.S. in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles and wants even more genetic embryo testing before embryos are transferred into the uterus. We are now, indeed, witnessing a no longer only subtle marketing launch of an even more controversial testing procedure for human embryos in association with IVF, so-called polygenic risk scoring (PRS, in association with IVF called preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic diseases, PGT-P).
So far, for practical as well as ethical reasons, mostly rejected by professional genetics as well as fertility societies on both sides of the Atlantic, we only recently covered in the July–August VOICE the unexplained disappearance of formal negative opinions, scheduled for official publication, about PRS/PGT-P by ASRM/SART as well as ESHRE, and pointed out that these and some other developments suggested attempts by financial interests within the fertility industry at “rehabilitating” PRS/PGT-P in preparation for more aggressive promotion of this new “add-on” to routine IVF. And—quicker than even we expected—our suspicion was confirmed when theWashington Post (WP)published an interesting and very detailed article, claiming that the Silicon Valley start-up scene is planning the large-scale production of so-called “super babies” through utilization of PRS/PGT-P. Unsurprisingly, we could not resist addressing this subject here.
Background
So, after quite a long break, The Washington Post (WP) published once again a lengthy article about an IVF-related subject, but this time the article is actually worth reading. It was not only informative but, fortunately, much more balanced between information and personal opinion than the last time Yeganeh Torbati, in principle a writer in politics and now covering Turkey and Iran for the WP, for unexplained reasons delved into IVF practice
The last time, things didn’t go too well, and she, therefore, this time wisely partnered with Elizabeth Dwoskin (above in the top photograph), since 2016 the paper’s Silicon Valley Correspondent, who, of course, knows everything and everybody in Silicon Valley inside out. Almost leaving IVF unmentioned, the article, however, suggests a lack of understanding of IVF by both writers since IVF, of course, is not only the principal instrument required for the production of “super babies,” but, as its principal goal, has always first and foremost the establishment of a pregnancy, in most cases in a woman/couple with infertility.
The article, nevertheless, offered very interesting insights and details on an embryo testing process called polygenic risk scoring (PRS). And it is, indeed, PRS—in the IVF world called preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) for polygenic diseases (PGT-P)—which is the instrument that, in an IVF cycle, through an embryo’s biopsy at the blastocyst stage, is now alleged to allow the determination of whether an embryo is genetically at increased risk for a so-called polygenetic disease—i.e., based on the collaborative effect of multiple genes (i.e., polygenic inheritance)—and is, for example, at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease.
This new test needs to be contrasted with other forms of PGT. Testing for single gene mutation (i.e., a single gene disease, in IVF called PGT-M) indeed started the concept of PGT in the late 1990s and, to this day, is indisputably the best and most accurate PGT test. Testing for chromosomal abnormalities (aneuploidies, in IVF called PGT-A)—also in several variations already offered for over 20 years—is, as already noted above, much more controversial and, as repeatedly mentioned in these pages, in the CHR’s opinion, should no longer be a routine test in IVF.
That Dwoskin knows the Silicon Valley start-up scene very well becomes quickly obvious. She, with this article, indeed, succeeded in presenting a very interesting picture involving some of the Valley’s biggest names when it comes to fostering—and, even more importantly, financing—new and interesting start-up projects, including those led by Thiel Fellows.
A little bit of history
The testing of embryos before embryo transfer initially arose in the late 1990s with the recognition that genetic material from an in vitro produced embryo could be obtained right after fertilization and before embryo transfer, thereby allowing genetic diagnoses of preimplantation-stage embryos and the deselection from embryo transfer of embryos genetically judged unworthy of transfer.
Two purposes arose in principle: (i) testing for single gene diseases, PGT-M; and (ii) testing for chromosomal abnormalities (now called PGT-A). While PGT-M has been a solid success from the earliest days of utilization, PGT-A has become increasingly controversial, with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) in late 2024, finally issuing a guidance that for the first time clearly noted that PGT-A in over 20 years of clinical use has been unable to demonstrate any cycle outcome utility.1
Defining the term “super-baby”
So, here is the new Silicon Valley definition of a “super baby:” As already noted earlier, a “super baby” is always conceived through IVF because it—as an embryo before implantation—must undergo genetic testing to make this embryo more “super.” The IVF process, of course, already mandates production of embryos with presumed best pregnancy and live birth chances.
But that is, of course, not enough to make a “super baby.” Moreover, testing for a single gene disease—if there is a history in the family (as is currently worldwide practice) is also not enough, at least not for Noor Siddiqui, a Thiel fellow, according to the WP, a young entrepreneur and founder of Orchid, an embryo screening start-up, where else but in Silicon Valley. She according to the article claims to have developed a testing ability in her start-up that allows very reliable whole genome amplification from just a handful of the blastocyst-stage embryo’s cells and, therefore, testing for all known single gene diseases known to mankind, even if their prevalence in the population is similar to the chance of winning in the lottery.
Testing with PRS/PGT-P
And if this claim reminds you by any chance of Elizabeth Holmes (currently for a good number of additional years in prison for defrauding investors) we would not be surprised (and if it does not remind you after all who Holmes is, we suggest you Google her) because, as the WP article points out, leading genomic experts have significant doubts about the accuracy of such extensive genomic amplifications from only a handful of embryonic cells from a blastocyst’s trophectoderm. And that a report by Siddiqui’s company about the test was only published in the relatively new F&S Reports journal, is also not very reassuring because it likely suggests that more established—and therefore more credible journals—must have rejected the paper before acceptance by F&S Reports.
But this is not all that Siddiqui promises her start-up Orchid can do; she furthermore claimed according to the WP that, through above-noted whole genome amplification, the company’s laboratory, moreover, can also accurately predict polygenic risks of preimplantation embryos for basically every polygenic disease, from diabetes, to hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. and this is, of course, absolute nonsense because even adult medicine is still struggling with this concept of risk prediction: validation studies have been going on for years. The number of published validation studies in human embryos, in contrast, is likely exactly zero.
And then there is, of course, one more major problem Siddiqui apparently does not understand: While in polygenic inheritance multiple genes on multiple chromosomes establish risk, for most polygenic diseases, this genomic risk represents only a fraction of the total risk, with most of the remaining risk coming from environmental factors. And how Siddiqui plans to account for future environmental risks of an embryo, starting during 40 weeks of pregnancy and then after birth over an undetermined lifetime, is unclear, and not only to us.
Practically speaking, what all of this means is that Orchid will, for example, (rightly or wrongly) conclude that a given embryo may, for example, have a 2.7% chance of developing type 2 diabetes, a 3.1% chance of becoming hypertensive, and a 1.8% chance of having a heart attack. In comparison, her second embryo may have a 1.6% chance of having a heart attack later in life, but a 3.2% chance of diabetes, and a 2.8% chance of developing hypertension and, all of this, of course, assuming these embryos ever implant, to become fetuses, that end up delivered because roughly a third to half of all pregnancies end up as miscarriages. Assuming such multifactorial hardly different risk percentages of being affected, can anybody really want to choose between two so similar embryos? We don’t think so!
The likely hidden agenda
But we suspect that this cannot really be the reason why PRS/PGT-P is now, suddenly, cautiously, but increasingly aggressively promoted by obvious commercial interests like the genetic testing industry, start-up country Silicon Valley, but also, of course, as we recently noted, by the clinical IVF industry.
That the average person will be stupid enough to pay substantial additional money (per WP, $5,000) for an already atrociously expensive IVF cycle for totally meaningless risk differences between transferable embryos for diseases (which by the time the embryos become adults, probably in a majority will already have successful treatments) appears unlikely. This can also be assumed considering that over half of all U.S. IVF patients already pay approximately $5,000 in out-of-pocket fees for PGT-A, as—to the best of our knowledge—no insurance plan covers PGT-A.
The idea behind mainstreaming PRS/PGT-P—we, therefore, believe—is a different one (even though strenuously denied by Siddiqui). Testing for blue eyes was probably the first alleged PRS/PGT-P offering publicly made in the U.S., even though it was abundantly clear how inaccurate these predictions were.3 But to spend money for even minor potential improvements in offspring may be a more attractive proposition than chasing the prevention of rare and potentially curable diseases. Akin to the PGT-A experience over more than 20 years, this notion is further supported by the fact that random events occur often enough to allow even some of the most ridiculous claims to find receptive audiences (i.e., PGT-A improves pregnancy and live birth rates, etc.) Improving an offspring’s height, weight, getting a certain hair color, eye color, and—even more so—specific talents, of course, including intelligence. In other words, show me the embryo that closest mimics Albert Einstein’s polygenic inheritance pattern, or how about what leads to Michael Jordan’s basketball skills, etc.
It is this kind of PRS/PGT-P that is truly focused on producing “super babies.” And, even more importantly, Silicon Valley believes that such additional embryo testing opens a potentially huge additional testing market.
So, where does all of this lead to?
Exaggerating the novelty of Saddiqui’s Orchid start-up, the WP article presented PRS/PGT-M almost as a seemingly brand-new idea, when several companies offering PRS/PGT-P have been around already for a good number of years. The CHR’s Norbert Gleicher, MD, in collaboration with several colleagues, moreover, already in March of 2022, penned an article in the prestigious Nature Medicine journal warning about the premature introduction of PRS/PGT-P to the marketplace in association with IVF.4
As the WP article also noted, the concerns expressed by Gleicher et al. in their article are still valid. And while serial entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley are now apparently convinced that—starting in the very future—all babies—at least in Silicon Valley—will be “super babies” exclusively produced through IVF plus PGT-M, PGT-A, and PGT-P, with the sex act, itself, relegated to only a function of entertainment. Prominent genetics experts have seriously questioned not only the accuracy of currently available testing stems, but also the practicability to reach in the foreseeable future clinically worthwhile predictive values for risks toward various diseases and individual characteristics. And even assuming that genomic associations are significantly further improved, how can one model future environmental exposures that dominate epigenetic functions?
Interestingly, Martin Varsavsky, MBA, a serial entrepreneur, including in the infertility field, already in 2016 predicted sex-less reproduction through IVF and—in those days—only with PGT-M and PGT-A.5 We would be surprised if he, since then, has not added PRS/PGT-P to the offerings at the IVF clinics in which he has invested.
And then there are, of course, also still all the major ethical concerns about PRS/PGT-A, from strengthening inequity in society, to the concept of eugenics, which we especially recently had the opportunity to repeatedly address in the CHR’s VOICE, and in The Reproductive Times. Eugenics is, of course, a concept the CHR strongly opposes. And one in that context, of course, also must wonder how long it may take for the genetic industry to offer the public “repair” (or exchange) of unwanted genetic mutations?
Finally, we cannot remain quiet when we see people, whether Silicon Valley mavens or journalists, as in the case of the WP article, ignoring the most basic purpose of IVF, which still is (or at least should be) to provide women with the best possible chances of conception. Yet—as a medical specialty—we have been increasingly moving away from this main purpose of IVF by constantly finding additional reasons to not use embryos or even discard them unnecessarily and, in doing so, indisputably reducing our patient’s overall (i.e., cumulative) pregnancy chance in their IVF cycles, while, concomitantly, steadily increasing the already almost unbearable costs of IVF and extending time to pregnancy rather than trying to shorten it.
Truly shameful!
References
Practice Committees of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. The use of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy: a committee opinion. Fertil Steril. 2024;122(3):421-434. doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2024.04.018
Dwoskin E, Torbati Y. Tech companies look to create "super babies." The Washington Post. Updated July 17, 2025. Accessed August 1, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/17/tech-brief-superbabies/
ABC News. Designer babies: Creating the perfect child. ABC News. March 3, 2009. Accessed August 1, 2025. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6998135&page=1
Gleicher N, Albertini DF, Patrizio P, Orvieto R, Adashi EY. The uncertain science of preimplantation and prenatal genetic testing. Nat Med. 2022;28(3):442-444. doi:10.1038/s41591-022-01712-7
Helft M. Building a better baby. Forbes. November 8, 2016:84-91.
And Our Comments About “The Race to Make Designer Babies”—According to The Free Press’ Old “Friend” and “Chinese Frankenstein,” He Jiankui, PhD, and His Ex Are Openly “Pioneering” Gene Editing of Human Embryos in IVF
This is how Johanna Berkman, an award-winning journalist, summarized her truly remarkable article in The Free Press: “I’ve spent hours talking to the ‘Chinese Frankenstein’ who says he’s opening a lab in Austin. His competition in his quest to pioneer gene editing in the U.S? It’s his ex.”
And what a story it is, seemingly almost planned (maybe by Silicon Valley??) to perfectly follow the above-noted article in the Washington Post (WP). But who could be that devious, or should we call it so sophisticated?
A little bit of history
As admirers and followers of almost everything The Free Press puts out since its founding, we nevertheless, could not believe our luck—having just expressed our significant continuing ethical and medical concerns about the quickly increasing propagation of polygenic risk scoring of embryos for polygenic characteristics and/or diseases in an editorial in The Reproductive Times, when Berkman’s article appeared on our computer screens, not only reaffirming our concerns but taking them to a next level. After all, the question no longer was diagnosing genetic “things” in human embryos but—once diagnosed—editing (i.e., changing) them.
And then, even the most creative screen writer could not have imagined the rest of the story: the two main actors in this latest development, a kind of wacky genius from China, He Jiankui, PhD, not a physician and not even a reproductive biologist, but a biophysicist who came to the U.S. after graduation from a leading university in China to pursue a PhD at Rice University in Houston in 2007 and, after several stops, ended up in 2011 as a postdoc at Stanford University in one of the world’s better known biological research labs at a time when CRISPR-Cas9 technology was publicly available and rapidly integrated into research projects in practically all medical fields.
His adviser was the lab’s director, Stephen Quake, PhD, not only a well-known physicist and inventor, but also a highly successful entrepreneur and founder of several highly successful start-up companies, and, as He described him to Berkman, a “super-rich” guy! Among many other responsibilities, Quake is also the chief scientific advisor of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a group of research institutes and individual programs funded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, which, according to Berkman, aims to “cure, prevent, and manage all diseases by the end of the century.” No wonder, of course, the interest in genetic editing.
In 2012, He returned to China to become a professor at a local university under China’s “Thousand Talent Plan,” but, according to He, remained in constant touch with Quake. And he had a big plan upon his return: He wanted to become known as one of the principal pioneers of gene editing of humans. Berkman noted in her article that a friend and colleague of He, the “Chinese Frankenstein” – a frequently heard nickname for He – felt that human self-improvement would become especially important in a world of A.I. that is quickly outsmarting mankind. Only gene-editing could help!
By November of 2018, He had announced the world’s first two gene-edited babies, which he “fixed” to be resistant to HIV, which their genetic father suffered from.
The world’s response was not as expected. He was not celebrated as a “pioneer in gene editing” but, very much to the contrary, was literally worldwide ostracized as a “crazy” outsider who really didn’t know what he was doing. Indeed, everything was questioned—starting with the clinical indication for performing gene editing on these two embryos. He had suggested it was due to the father’s HIV status, which, rightly, was not considered an appropriate reason by the global scientific community, as the risk of transmitting HIV to offspring using washed semen from individuals with undetectable viral loads was practically zero.
He was also severely criticized for failing to formally report in the medical literature procedure details and the appropriate follow-up studies on the twins after their birth. To this day, He indeed has not reported any details about how the twin births were accomplished. The Free Press article noted that He claims that the gene editing step to protect the two twins from HIV risk was 100% successful in one of the twins, but only 50% successful in the second twin. Why that should be is also left unanswered.
Apparently unknown to Berkman, He also appears to have forgotten that, at the time the twin pregnancy news conquered the world, He also announced a second case of gene editing. What happened to that case has, to the best of our knowledge, never been reported. Whether this second attempt also led to a successful birth is, therefore, unknown, but, of course, would be of considerable interest.
According to He, the genetic editing project was conducted with full transparency at the university where he was employed, was fully supported by the local Communist authorities “with enthusiasm,” and was also not objected to by several prominent U.S. colleagues who were on the in and at all times fully informed about his intentions, including his former advisor, Quen. Indeed, indirectly, Quen had helped finance the project because, as a postdoc in Quen’s lab, He received stock in one of Quen’s start-up companies, which later allegedly provided half a million dollars in financing for his HIV project in China.
Seeing the uproar He’s explorations had caused around the world, the Communist authorities in China, suddenly, were much less smitten with He’s project and not only formally disallowed it, but convicted him in court for the inappropriate practice of medicine. His conviction called for a three-year prison term, but the whole court case was likely just a charade to distance the authorities from the case. Nobody ever saw He in prison, and when Berkman, in one of her many conversations with He, asked him in which prison he served his term, she got no answer.
“I have an agreement with the people,” he told Berkman, “I can’t talk about it.”
It appears likely that he didn’t even spend a single day behind bars. No surprise, therefore, that He felt no hesitation about again going public with his new plans. This time, the plan is to study the elimination of Alzheimer’s disease through gene editing. And this is where the story in the Free Press article is really getting outright bizarre and, at the same time, seriously comical.
The “Chinese Frankenstein” wants to cure Alzheimer’s disease through gene editing in the U.S.
The term “China’s Frankenstein” was first used in an article about He in The Telegraph, and it stuck. As Berkman reported in her article, she had the opportunity to speak to He three years after he got out of what likely was a very benevolent house arrest, though he was still unable to leave China since he had not received his passport back. He was, nevertheless, “plotting a comeback in America.”1 To be more specific, he was planning on opening a lab in Austin, TX, with the goal of learning from monkeys and nonviable human embryos how to edit human embryos to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Which brings us to another Thiel Fellow (remember Noor Seddiqui in the preceding article), and this time she is not of Indian but of Chinese descent. Her name is Cathy Tie, and she is a 29-year-old Canadian bioinformatician and serial entrepreneur who, according toForbes, published her first research paper (in immunology) at age 16.2 With Josie Zayner, PhD, a quite well-known biohacker, artist, and biochemist/biophysicist (PhD, University of Chicago), she recently founded the Los Angeles Project with plans to make dragons and unicorns through genetic editing.3 And from dragons and unicorns, it wasn’t very far to “designer-babies,” and her initial partner in trying to “do gene corrections in human embryos more safely,” was—yes, you guessed right—He Jinakui, PhD
Consequently, what initially seemed like a marriage made in heaven, offering America a new company with—as Tie apparently explained to Berkman in their first meeting—“the promise of being a company that does embryo editing in the light, with transparency and good intentions,” but that ended up very differently: Two very short-term exes claiming to completely separately compete which each other (“I do not work with him directly or indirectly in any way,” Tie claimed; “I had nothing to do with the 2018 babies. I didn’t even know him back then”).
Tie obviously likes big names for her projects. After the Los Angeles Project to make dragons and unicorns, “fixing” human embryos, of course, requires an even bigger name. And in calling it the Manhattan Project, she did find it because doesn’t making “designer babies”, indeed, match the nation’s effort to produce a nuclear bomb to end WWII?
He in the meantime increasingly appears like a tragic-comic historical figure: Claiming to originally—before falling out of favor—having met with the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to query whether he should pursue his HIV project and receiving an “enthusiastic response” indicating that the project would “produce huge glory for China in science,” China’s Ministry of Science and Technology these days was not ready to support his new research plans.
Several labs he attempted to establish in China dispossessed him once they figured out who he was. As Berkman is quoting him, “Harvard and other famous U.S. universities don’t even want to talk to him.”
The company he founded to pursue his research work in Austin is still called after his ex-wife, Cathy Medicine, and he is not planning on a name change. He pursued Silicon Valley for some financing and, initially, indeed claimed to Berkman that Silicon Valley would underwrite his lab in Austin. But in a conversation a few weeks later, he complained that people from Silicon Valley “are too arrogant.” Apparently, he now hopes to secure funding from outside the U.S.
Summary & conclusions
What all of this is telling us is that we better get ready not only for PRS/PGT-P but also for the genetic editing of embryos. But the editing of embryos cannot be equated with using CRISPR therapy in already alive babies to cure a devastating genetic disease, as, for the first time, was recently reported to have been accomplished!4
The principal reason for this distinction (among several others) is, of course, obvious: A preimplantation-stage embryo in an embryology laboratory does not equate to a newborn baby. With all the special considerations given by society (including the research community) to human embryos, preimplantation-stage embryos—whether in nature or an IVF cycle—are much more likely will never implant in a uterus than achieve successful implantation. But at the same time, while there is almost no chance of abuse in trying to cure a newborn from a deadly disease, the opportunity for abuse is wide open in modifying the genome of a preimplantation-stage embryo in an IVF laboratory.
It, of course matters whether the DNA of a preimplantation-stage embryo is edited with CRISPR to eliminate a deadly disease or whether the reason is a hoped-for improvement in intelligence by a only few points (even the best PRS/PGT-P can affect the IQ by only a few points), according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, already a very popular indication for PRS/PGT-A for which Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires apparently are willing to pay up to $50,000 in additional IVF cycle costs.5
Unsurprisingly, all of this, because of its unique patient population, of course, affects the CHR differently from most, if not all, other IVF service providers. To say it bluntly, because the very adversely selected patient population of the CHR produces much fewer eggs and embryos than patients at other IVF clinics, the embryos the CHR produces on a daily basis are relatively more “valuable” to their patients than embryos at most other IVF clinics.
This, of course, does not mean that CHR embryos are made out of gold or that they are, necessarily (though to a degree they are), more expensive to produce. What it means is that the CHR’s patients, because of much older age and several other unique patient characteristics, produce much fewer eggs and embryos than patients at other fertility clinics and, therefore, start with a significant outcome disadvantage.
And while the CHR’s embryos, indeed, are not made out of gold, almost every embryo at the CHR is indeed, worth gold because every embryo the CHR might be able to rescue through genome editing and, in the process, make transferrable, in the CHR’s patient population, indeed, would not only be worth gold but, maybe, even diamonds.
That rescuing genomic-abnormal embryos was especially important for the CHR’s patient population had already become apparent over 20 years ago. Few colleagues probably still remember that in the summer of 2003, researchers from the CHR were planning on presenting orally a study at the Annual ESHRE Conference in Europe, that year in Barcelona, Spain. The study, indeed, was selected as one of only a handful of finalists for the big prize award of the conference. After a press conference organized by ESHRE for all the finalists, one reporter from a news agency didn’t like the CHR’s work, describing it as creating “monsters,” and, overnight, the paper was not only removed as a finalist but was not allowed to be presented.
We are mentioning this here and in this context because the study was using embryos specifically donated for research, conceived to investigate a potential way of “rescuing” embryos with genetic diseases, exactly what CRISPR genome editing now offers in much better ways.
Despite the condemnation the study—we believe unfairly—elicited at the time from ESHRE and all around the world, Fertility and Sterility, nevertheless, published the study (yes, see below; there was a time when F&S had a spine).6 But, in view of the public’s response, the CHR decided not to continue this research, which, in retrospect, of course, looks very differently.
Now, over 20 years later, fixing embryos unusable in IVF because they carry a genomically inherited disease is once again under consideration. And if we can do it safely and it gives us an extra transferable, healthy embryo to help a woman conceive who, otherwise, would have no chance of becoming a mother, how can one not favor such treatment!
We, of course, already hear the opposition’s argument of the slippery slope. It, indeed, is a difficult argument to dismiss if one is cognizant of the at times rather audacious and outright misleading claims some members of the genetic testing industry (and, unfortunately, also some members of our IVF community) already are making in support of marketing PRS/PGT-P.
Mostly unrecognized yet by media and society, due to the explosion of interest in PRS/PGT-P and genomic editing of embryos, the IVF field finds itself already in a giant Pandora’s box, relevant not only to infertility practice but to all of medicine. And—even though this issue affects all of science and all of medicine—it is reproductive medicine and especially the infertility field that—as always—ultimately, ends up at the forefront of controversy. In being the only medical specialty that, on a daily basis, creates and not—like the rest of medicine—“only” saves lives, we better prepare for what, undoubtedly, is coming our way!
References
Berkman J. The Free Press. Monday, August 11, 2025.
Forbes. 30 under 30. 2018. https://www.forbes.com/profile/cathy-tie/
Knoepfler P. June 4, 2025. The Niche. https://ipscell.com/2025/06/dragons-unicorns-glowing-bunnies-oh-my-josie-zayner-cathy-tie-launch-the-los-angeles-project/
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. May 15, 2025. https://www.chop.edu/news/worlds-first-patient-treated-personalized-crispr-gene-editing-therapy-childrens-hospital.
Linson Z. The Wall Street Journal. August 14, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valley-high-iq-children-764234f8?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAhoCWg85ySAb_bxp7BQjyejWTzDc0nOQuU3ZQMHrfq1pngaMw0jrZUquRFGRBQ%3D&gaa_ts=689f5762&gaa_sig=QIq3hWz0aHG2yx32OU3wQ2VKP83MSr9nbDFRtH7Xo6FpJKknAk73wkMgwZNP_ktXtwZ-G_bzeLfAZScHGiTRHA%3D%3D
Gleicher N, Tang Y-X. Feril Steril 2004;81(4):977-981